In the Duck Curve video I explained how this very solvable problem is being used by utilities to slow the growth of renewables and batteries on homes and businesses.

And through this example of how a dam can be a mind bogglingly huge battery, once you learn about the innovation of pumped hydro, I show that the utilities could be doing more to access more renewables, solve issues around intermittence and lower costs.

This and other innovations are proving why your Arizona utility and Corporation Commission would rather raise rates on you, and saddle all of us with higher bills for 30 years than support clean energy plus batteries and energy efficiency

In short, Arizona utilities are raising your rates and polluting our skies with new methane gas plants because they don’t want to give up profit –you know, “public service.”

I tell you how in this video.

As I’ve been driving around the west, I’ve still been paying my electric bill back in Phoenix. The folks watching my house are doing a great job conserving energy, but we’ve all been shocked by just how insanely fast the power bill has increased over last year.

This terrible dynamic is even worse for people less privileged than myself. In some parts of the state, people are literally paying the utilities to install more methane gas power plants and, in turn to be provided dirtier air for them and their children to breath.

Once you understand how the key decisions from our utilities are making the air dirtier and saddling us with volatile methane gas prices for the next 30 years, you can’t unsee it.

Watch at your own risk.

When utilities want to tell you how bad renewables are –particularly solar and batteries on homes an businesses– they turn to the duck curve.

The duck curve demonstrates how demand on the energy grid drops off significantly during the middle of the day, due to all the solar panels on houses, and then rockets back up in the evening as soon as the sun begins to set and people come home to turn on all of their heating, cooling and energy hog appliances.

The system, they say, can’t handle the variability.

You still with me? Or did I lose you at “energy grid?”

Well, stick with me because in this video I describe the real reason that utilities don’t want you to have more solar on your home. Spoiler alert, its money. But there is more to it than that, and there is something we can do about it.

The core of the problem is based in a century-old design feature of public utility commissions that regulate monopolies. In Arizona we have the Arizona Corporation Commission, or the ACC, which does this. In our case, our ACC is dominated by people who roll over for the utilities when it comes to clean energy, batteries and energy efficiency. 

Those commissioners and utilities try to scare people with untrue tales of “reduced reliability” due to renewables on your home. Balderdash!

This video is designed to be an intro to the concepts of the duck curve and why renewables + batteries + energy efficiency can solve the problem –and why utilities don’t want that to happen.

We’ve known for some time that this “trifecta of clean energy” is the solution to the problem of the duck curve, but entrenched interests continue to push back. Cries that California has higher energy costs due to renewables are either misinformed or a lie, and you will see why in the video.

Plus, there is more of Ellie.

I know. You are here for Ellie. I’m cool with that.

Thanks, one last time, to our friends at the Cromford Report. Their in-depth analysis over the last 18 years has given me an edge as a realtor. I hope you’ve gained from them as well.

To highlight…

Here are the basics – the ARMLS numbers for September 1, 2024 compared with September 1, 2023 for all areas & types:

• Active Listings (excluding UCB & CCBS): 18,430 versus 11,969 last year – up 54% – and up 5.5% from 17,474 last month
• Active Listings (including UCB & CCBS): 21,047 versus 14,476 last year – up 45% – and up 3.6% compared with 20,320 last month
• Pending Listings: 4,041 versus 4,604 last year – down 12.2% – and down 9.0% from 4,441 last month
• Under Contract Listings (including Pending, CCBS & UCB): 6,658 versus 7,111 last year – down 6.4% – and down 8.6% from 7,287 last month
• Monthly Sales: 5,683 versus 6,267 last year – down 9.3% – and down 8.5% from 6,208 last month
• Monthly Average Sales Price per Sq. Ft.: $290.60 versus $282.14 last year – up 3.0% – and up 1.3% from $286.74 last month
• Monthly Median Sales Price: $440,000 versus $435,000 last year – up 1.1% – but unchanged from $440,000 last month

The re-sale market continues in the doldrums and has reacted very little so far to the lower mortgage rates that have emerged since July. Under contract listings went down a further 8.6% during August rather than staging a recovery. Demand appears to be stronger in the new home sector but that has a relatively modest effect on the MLS statistics because the bulk of new homes are not listed on the MLS. However one look at the stock price charts for the major homebuilders will tell you they are in a good mood.

Re-sale supply usually rises between August and November, but this year the trend got off to an early start and we have 5.5% more listings active and without a contract than a month ago. With demand weak and supply rising, sellers are not getting the break they were probably hoping for. Concession to buyers and price cuts continue to be common and widespread.

The Cromford® Market Index slipped below 100 at the end of July and spent all of August hovering between 99 and 100. We rarely see such little movement in the CMI. The contract ratio is somewhat less stable, falling from 42 to 36 and this represents a further cooling in the market. It seems many potential buyers want to see rates drop below 6% before they make a move.

The only bright spot for sellers is that pricing improved during August with the average $/SF rising 1.3% from July. However the median sales price was unchanged and is up only 1.1% from a year ago. This is less than inflation so in real terms homes are cheaper than this time last year. This statement does not apply to the very top end of the market which has significantly risen in price over the last 12 months. In fact we saw a new record of almost $32.4 million paid for a new home just completed in Paradise Valley’s Mummy Mountain Estates. Unusually, this was a spec home and it sold for more than $2,000 per sq. ft. The market over $5 million is not seeing the same conditions as the regular market.

In August I found myself in Bozeman and Missoula. Only a couple weeks after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

Coming on the heels of my conversations about nihilism, I met people who were finding purpose and meaning in the everyday, repetitive and often frustrating activities which accumulate to real success over time.

On the same day that Donald Trump brought his circus to the town of Bozeman, I interviewed Alecia Jongeward in a park down the street from the pop-up market of absurd campaign nicknacks. Just a mile separated us, but we might as well have been living in different time lines.

Alecia is a former teacher who guided students at her high school over many years as they took on increasingly challenging projects. They started with recycling in school, then created their own state-wide climate summit, raised over $100,000 to install solar panels on their school and most recently secured an EPA grant for all-electric school buses.

It was an amazing juxtaposition. In one corner was an old showman trying to convince Americans that the future is bleak in order to coalesce power; a one-trick pony in the center ring trying desperately to keep the show alive by weaving stories of better days and imaginary enemies hidden among our friends and neighbors.

In the other corner were students, pushing their teacher to let them move faster with all of their plans to make their future better than our dystopian present. They see existing in balance on our planet as the the most important and meaningful future to work toward. To them, renewable energy represents clean air, jobs, energy independence, innovation and hope. This is not an academic argument for them. They flatly reject the (easily proven) false claims from the circus ringmaster that clean energy and sustainable practices are bad for our country.

In some ways, their resolute drive ignores the circus master. They know with every action they take that his time in this world is short. And while the damage he has done will drain us for a generation, we can survive and we can find a thousand better ways to live in balance with the very environment that sustains our existence.

In Missoula, I met much older people who were fighting just as hard against astounding odds. The volunteers with 350 Montana probably averaged in their 60s. They certainly know that they will not see the fruits of their labor. They are the truly selfless.

They could have chosen the nihilistic route. They could have found some active retirement community somewhere, martini in hand, to watch the world slip in to further despair. They could have said, “I’m only going to help my family.” They could have allowed the ringmaster to convince them that they should blame whatever boogyman he served up for them that day.

But they chose to help all of our families.

Alecia’s students described their motivation as enraged optimism. For me, trying to exorcise nihilism from my life, enraged optimism provides new fuel for the fight.